Food: Fast and Furious

Today practically everything is fast and frozen, convenience, laced with drugs, chemicals, of unknown origin, maybe grown massively using artificial fertilisers and pesticides, or from genetically modified organisms (GMOs)... Really, this latest phase of human food production, placing economics first and consumer health second, is yet another example of modern-day madness.

Just for the record, the FDA’s list of Additives in Food contains a total of 34,692 words in the document – that's maybe 1,500 additives described there. See the FDA website. Colours for Food Use contains 4,339 words in the list. These are chemicals added to food simply to make them look colourful, since the natural colours have mostly been processed out of them. Modern man lives in a sea of chemicals, food-substitutes and junk food. It’s a wonder we don’t get even sicker than we are.

Here’s the story of what’s really in a McDonald’s hamburger. Instead of simple bread (it used to be flour, water and yeast) and meat and vegetables, this invention contains everything except Ms. McDonald’s old kitchen sink! According to McDonald’s own website, this is the list of ingredients for their popular McDouble sold in USA:

REGULAR BUN:

Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin.

PASTEURIZED PROCESSED AMERICAN CHEESE

Ingredients: Milk, Cream, Water, Cheese Culture, Sodium Citrate, Contains 2% or Less of: Salt, Citric Acid, Sodium Phosphate, Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Lactic Acid, Acetic Acid, Enzymes, Sodium Pyrophosphate, Natural Flavor (Dairy Source), Color Added, Soy Lecithin (Added for Slice Separation).

KETCHUP

Ingredients: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water, Salt, Natural Flavors (Plant Source).

PICKLE SLICES

Ingredients: Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Alum, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Natural Flavors (Plant Source), Polysorbate 80, Extractives of Turmeric (Color).

SLIVERED ONIONS*

MUSTARD

Ingredients: Distilled Vinegar, Water, Mustard Seed, Salt, Turmeric, Paprika, Spice Extractive.

100% BEEF PATTY

Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders. Prepared with Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper).

And note: “Our fried menu items are cooked in a vegetable oil blend with citric acid added as a processing aid and dimethylpolysiloxane to reduce oil splatter when cooking. We are no longer adding TBHQ to our restaurant cooking oil, but as we transition to our new oil supply, some restaurants may have trace amounts of TBHQ in their cooking oil for a period of time. This information is correct as of July 2016, unless stated otherwise.”

TBHQ = TBHQ is used as a preservative for unsaturated vegetable oils and many edible animal fats. It does not cause discoloration even in the presence of iron, and does not change flavor or odor of the material to which it is added. It can be combined with other preservatives such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA). As a food additive, its E number is E319. It is added to a wide range of foods, with the highest limit (1 gram/kg) permitted for frozen fish and fish products. Its primary advantage is extending storage life.

* Hey, the only one that doesn’t have extra ingredients, but where are they grown, with how much artificial fertiliser and pesticides, and how have they been treated before being slivered?

We don’t need an extended discourse or economic studies (although it would be interested to ascertain the economic benefits of fast food and pre-cooked packaged food vs. the detrimental health effects overall of a typical American diet). The food industry will tell us that cheap food is good and necessary, but the healthcare industry has grown out of all proportion by prescribing all kinds of drugs to treat the symptoms of bad nutrition and bad psychology further down the line when you start getting all kinds of new-fangled diseases!

The man to listen to here is Michael Pollan – author, activist, journalist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. 

Just a few of his tips:

#11 Avoid foods you see advertised on television.

#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.

#39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

#47 Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.

#58 Do all your eating at a table.

But anyway, common sense says this: Mother Nature has been producing food for millions of years. Ancient man was always conservative in his approach and relied heavily on manual labour to eke out a living, so not much mischief could be done. “Modern” man and his new-fangled technology have been around for less than 100 years (let’s say since the Continental Baking Company introduced “fortified” sliced white Wonder Bread in 1930). Mass production using petroleum-based pesticides and fertilisers and the industrialisation of food manufacturing is only 50 years old. The only basis for relying so completely on such recent science and trusting it so blindly is an ingrained socially-fomented attitude of disdain towards “primitive” people of past ages, which is quite unjustified. We are told they were of course “underdeveloped” and poor stupid folk who could not enjoy the delights of modern-day civilisation, but is this really true?

So let this be food for thought...